


Anthropologist's Report: On Languages, both Human and Alien, and Arbitrary Translations

by dragonofdispair



Series: Roads [25]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-01
Updated: 2008-05-01
Packaged: 2018-02-26 19:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2663342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor Daniel Jackson on translating an alien language into English...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anthropologist's Report: On Languages, both Human and Alien, and Arbitrary Translations

Transformers and pronouns... Transformers are genderless. Those on earth right now use the pronouns "he" and "him" because they're research indicates that most earth languages default on the male and English, which is the language spoken most often by those around them doesn't have a genderless pronoun that doesn't also carry connotations of being an object rather than a person. I imagine that the pronoun situation would/will be different when speaking a language that has more options than the English 'he', 'she, and 'it'. Most Americans would prefer to perceive them as males and so they use the english male pronouns. 

It's possible that one of the future Autobots might prefer the female pronouns. When I asked why, I was told that it would be an individual choice, much like their names. The reasons could vary as much as their reasons for choosing the English equivalent of their names would. It could be as trivial as the Autobot in question likes the way they sound better. There will be no physical difference between an Autobot that prefers being called female and one prefers male pronouns -- at least no more of a difference than between two different "male" transformers of different construction models.

There are a lot other words they use as nouns, which are not, in english, pronouns, (though in their own language they have the same function as pronouns do in english) when referring to each other and others of their species. The distinctions are sometimes subtle, but important.

First and most obvious are the words "Autobot" and "Decepticon" themselves. These terms describe a transformer by his faction. Both of these have abbreviations -- 'Bot and 'Con, respectively. The abbreviations are actually an english reflection of a subtle insult in their own language. That's why the word 'Con is used by the Autobots more often than the word 'Bot (or at least the word "'Bot" when it's an abbreviation of "Autobot"). Few Autobots use the abbreviation/insult when referring to one of their own faction. Jazz did, but he had a, the word they use is "accent" though I don't believe that's perfectly accurate -- 'attitude' may be a better word, that softened the insult unless he was trying to be insulting. Bumblebee says that there are some Decepticons -- ones that hate everyone -- that use the insult without softening it to refer to ones of their own faction.

The English word 'bot is used in a more general sense as well. They decided, for some reason that as far as I could tell is basically a whim (or not a whim, but each of them says that if I want an explanation of the reason I would have had to ask Jazz, and that his answer might have made sense to me, but they doubted it), that their equivalent to "human" was "robot" as opposed to either "android" or "mechanoid", but since humans don't use the word "human" in conversation when indicating another they shorten it to "'bot" as an equivalent to "person".

'Bot used in this manner has no connotations of faction or design. What this means as far a human interaction is that when the Autobots use the word "'bot" like this, the 'bot in question could be an Autobot or a Decepticon, a fully independent robot like most of the Autobots or a drone like Scorponok, and have any functional configuration and that that function may or may not be reflected in their alternate forms and spark choices. It is the most general term used, and as such is at the same time the most neutral and the the one most likely to offer an unintended insult by grouping very different transformers together with others they may not want to be associated with linguistically.

Cybertronian (the name of their planet "Cybertron" + the english suffix "-ian") can also be used like "robot" or "'bot", but more technically refers to all residents of their home planet, including forms of non-sentient "wildlife" which were random creations of the Allspark and have mostly died off since the Allspark was lost. Also, the Autobots on Earth now are consciously trying to abandon this term to reflect that Earth is their new home and only use it for things that will never be Earthen, such as when describing their language. As their new Earth specific term to replace "Cybertronian" they've officially adopted "Transformer" which is what they've heard humans occasionally refer to them as.

There is also the term "mech" -- again the reason for that term as opposed to any other is, to quote, "Jazz's fault" -- which also has no factional connotations, but is only used for fully independent 'bots, though those 'bots could be any functional configuration. If a transformer who prefers to be called by female pronouns lands, this will most likely be the corresponding term to be feminized. What that new term may or may not be will be chosen by the first feminine-preference transformer to land on Earth. "Mech" is not used for drones.

"Drone" is used for drones, all types of drones, of which there are four types.

The most distinct of the four types is the "Cassetticon" type. These are a sort of Decepticon drone that are each attached to their original creator as their master and will die if their master is killed. The word Cassetticon is the english equivalent of an adopted Decepticon word -- which is why the word contains the factional insult 'Con as part of it; the truly Decepticon equivalent would probably be closer to "Decepticon Cassette". As far as I can tell the usage of the english "cassette" was arbitrary. Bumblebee came up with it when they felt the need to explain Scorponok's new status to you, Secretary Keller.

When referring to a Cassetticon they will use the word "Cassetticon" (assuming they know the drone in question is a Cassette) rather than the word "drone" even though Cassetticons are drones. This is because if it is known that the drone is a Cassetticon, using the specific term immediately conveys four things about the enemy which are both weaknesses that can be taken advantage of and strengths that need to be worked around.

1) If the Cassetticon's master is killed, he will also die

2) A Cassetticon's death will backlash on his master

3) Cassetticons are usually parts of a team made up of the master and between two and ten drones. In the past that team might also include other members of the master's familiy unit, but as Decepticons in general don't form family units as easily as Autobots do all the remaining Cassetticon masters are loners.

4) All the members of a Cassetticon team will defend and avenge all the other members

This is important information to the Autobots and the reason they adopted a Decepticon word to distinguish this type of drone from the others. Otherwise the Autobot side of the Cybertronian language only distinguishes between sentient and non-sentient. They haven't come up with english equivalents for those because as far as human interaction is concerned, the only drones they've needed to refer to are the sentient Decepticon drones -- specifically Scorponok. The Autobots don't really have they ability to build their own non-sentient drones anymore, so they don't refer to them in English at all, leaving the word "drone" to describe sentient drones.

I'm told that their word for sentient drones also contains the abbreviated/insulting version of "Decepticon" -- reflecting of course that the Autobots don't build sentient drones.

There are two types of sentient drones other than Cassetticons -- one that can survive indefinitely without a master, and one that needs to find a new master within a length of time roughly equivalent to a year and a half or will die. Because the difference has no significance to the Autobots, they use the same word to describe both. Bumblebee tells me that the Decepticons have separate words for each. When I asked if he could tell me, he flicked the panels on his back -- a sort of dismissive shrug among those models that have such appendages -- and arbitrarily chose "Alpha-drone" and "Beta-drone". For the record: he referred to Scorponok as an Alpha-drone, one that can survive indefinitely without a master.

A drone is also described in terms of his shape. Or rather drones whose forms are based off of those of wildlife -- Cybertronian wildlife while on their home planet, though, like mechs, they can transcan a new wildlife form when landing on a new planet -- and don't have alternate forms are sometimes called "creature drones". The opposite, a drone whose form is closer to that of a mech's and has an alternate vehicle form, would be a "non-creature done" or just "drone". The breakdown according to shape continues in their own language, but further differences aren't linguistically important to humans and so the smaller categories don't have equivalents yet, and may never.

Mechs can also be described according to shape. The most commonly singled out shape is the seeker model. Seekers are transformers whose original alternate modes have a method of movement similar to Earth's jets and thus mostly will take the alternate forms of jets. Originally they continued the factional division and used "seeker-'Con" and "Autobot seeker", but sometime before I was hired, Bumblebee used the word in the presence of Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes and they informed them that "seeker-'Con" sounded weird and awkward, "Autobot seeker" was too long to use regularly, and they thought "seeker" was specific enough, since the only seeker that had ever been on Earth was Starscream. 

Though this has recently changed slightly. When the two Autobot Seekers, Air Raid and Fireflight, landed, they decided that the the abbreviation "Decepti" was another English equivalent of the abbreviation "'Con" and started calling the Decepticon seekers "Decepti-jets" -- further insulting them by grouping them more firmly with human jets. The name the two use for themselves -- "Aerialbot" -- is a minefield of insult and politics I recommend us humans stay out of. I suggest using either "Aerials" or "Autobot seekers" or, best of all, their names, until the politics have been settled. 

Other than that though, they've kept the shape-descriptors translated to English both general and factionless -- car-bot (here the contraction of "robot" rather than "Autobot"), seeker, flyer and triplechanger. Car-bot for all ground units. Seeker for jets. Flyer for cyclo-craft, hovercraft, and space shuttles. And triplechanger for those with two alternate forms -- usually a flight craft and a ground craft.

Note that under this very general system, both the tank-shaped Decepticon Captain Lennox describes and the car-shaped Autobots would be "car-bots" and some of the more high-strung Autobots may take a human grouping them together like that as an insult. Ironhide (who is the one that explained how this could be taken an insult, but is not one who believes it such -- at least not from humans) says that among those with grounded alternate modes without weapons, ie cars, being grouped with those with grounded alternate modes with weapons, ie tanks, is possibly offensive because most tanks are Decepticons. Those Autobots with tank alternate forms might take offense at being grouped with those with "helpless" forms.

One more point of interest on adapting to our language -- the Autobots are maintaining a sort of website on our Internet with more Cybertronian compatible downloads of several Earth languages -- including these noun and pronoun equivalents -- and their distribution around the world, along with any other information they feel a newly arrived Autobot might need even before they could join up with the main group. This information is not encrypted by their standards (I imagine a human might find it fairly difficult to decrypt) and any transformer capable of connecting to the Internet could access the information on this site. Therefore there is nothing there that has any possible objection to a Decepticon knowing about. It's almost entirely things that can already be found on the internet, just in a format more compatible with their systems in case a group without a covert-ops or communication specialist lands. An example of things that are not on the internet in other places are lists of common social blunders not to make, things not to call a human if you don't want Prime angry at you, and which secrecy protocols are in effect. The only names listed are the Decepticons' and their English designations.

 

end report

 

"Soldier's Guide to Alien Interaction" entry: A Glossary of English Terms That Have Been Kidnapped By Aliens

 

he/she/it -- Don't matter. call them what they want to be called and otherwise ignore it. You give them shit over it, someone's gonna give you shit over it.

Autobot -- The good guys. Don't say "'Bot" when you mean "Autobot". It's insulting. Even if the robots don't take offense, your superior officer's gonna slap a reprimand in your file.

Decepticons -- The bad guys. Go ahead and shorten this to "'Con". We don't mind if you insult these guys.

Robot -- Yes that's what they are. You are allowed to shorten "robot" to "'bot". My personal advice though is don't skirt the legalities and stick with more specific nouns. Safer that way.

Mech -- No idea what this is short for, but it's used for the big, human shaped ones. Note both "big" and "human shaped". And remember that "big" is relative -- the scorpion-bot is downright tiny to them.

Cassetticon -- bad news. If they refer to something like this, listen to them.

Drone -- This is for the ones that either aren't big or human shaped. Like the scorpion bot. Also: Creature drone. (the distinction should be self explanatory)

Seekers -- Those nasty mofos that fly like jets. Just because some are on our side don't make them anything other than nasty, just normally nasty to the 'Cons

Decepti-jet -- Semi-insulting way to refer to a Decepticon seeker. 

Car-bot -- The ones with wheels. Yes even if "wheels" is closer to "tank treads" it's still true. Though you guys should just stick with using "mech". Dunno why, but my source says it's safer.

Recharge -- Shut down. Asleep. Seriously leave them alone.

Spark -- Heart and soul and other mushiness

Sparkling -- Anytime this comes up, you seriously want to ignore it. Even if it sounds like they're insulting you. Especially if it sounds like they're insulting you. The concept will break your brain, swear to god.

Alternate form or Alt form -- When they look like cars or trucks or planes instead of robots.

Primus -- Religious figure. No arguing religious theory with the robots.

Unicron -- No arguing religious theory with the alien robots.

Frag (fragging, fragged, fragger), Slag (slagging, slagged, slagger), Scrap (etc), glitch (etc), Pit -- Swearwords. Major fun times here.

 

fini


End file.
